Chapter 28
Ah! An afternoon undisturbed.
The dowager sat at one of the potting tables in the back of her orangerie in a wrought-iron chair with the most wonderfully comfortable seat cushion Charlotte had sewed for her, embroidered all over in a riotous pattern of lilacs and damselflies, with a false widow spider hiding in one corner under the curl of a lilac leaf.
How like Charlotte, not to leave any scene too sweet.
The spider had made the dowager laugh the first time she spotted it; even now, she often rubbed it absently with her finger when she was mulling over particularly spiky problems. It reminded her to keep an eye out for the unexpected, a thought worth holding when exploring the fascinating world of Mother Nature.
Or the fascinating world of granddaughters.
Headstrong, heedless, too sure of herself for her own good—she’d heard it all about Charlotte, and it made the dowager nothing but proud.
After all, she’d had the same words thrown at her when she was young.
Happy was the only word she cared about when it came to her grandchildren, or perhaps content, because happiness blew in and out on the breeze but true contentment lived inside, safe and protected.
The dowager rubbed the little spider again and thought of her lost son.
Charlotte had been too young when her father died to remember his drinking or his rage, and certainly not the dread that sat over Clare like a creeping fog, making it impossible to breathe.
The dowager had lost her son by slow degrees, unable to recognize him in the final years.
But she’d clung to hope that the bright boy she’d loved so fiercely would return, right up until the day they’d lowered his coffin into the ground.
The one thing that had kept her head up was little Charlotte, crawling into the dowager’s lap with sticky hands and busy thoughts, making them all laugh even then.
The dowager and Julian—only fifteen at the time—had been determined that Charlotte should have as much laughter as she pleased, and they’d done their best to shield her.
Had it taken them too long to see that Charlotte’s laughter was a bit too ready?
The dowager had only wanted to spare her granddaughter pain, but had she instead let her hide it in plain sight?
Charlotte was as outrageous as ever this summer, but so lost, whirling in the wind like a dandelion seed. What she needed was—
The sound of boots rang out against the stone floor, snapping the dowager out of her reverie.
“Your Grace, I was just thinking of you! Will you join me in a glass of lemonade, or shall I send one of the gardeners up to the house to fetch you a pot of tea?”
“Not for me, Lady Alice. Thank you.” His jaw ticked as he indicated another wrought-iron chair. “May I?”
So, not a social visit, then? The dowager blinked up at him, a bland smile on her face but her eyes quick and searching.
The duke was in high dudgeon, and with her for some reason.
Interesting!
“Please do. I hope you won’t mind that I can’t offer you a cushion, but then again, your bones don’t ache like mine.”
It was always a good idea to remind the young pups of her age. It put them on their back paws and made them easier to handle.
Warrick scraped a chair forward and sat down, looking grim in-deed. “Lady Alice, it pains me to say this, but—”
“Just a moment, dear boy. I’m thirsting for my lemonade.”
The pitcher wasn’t heavy, but she let her hands shake as she lifted it, pouring the lemonade out in the slowest trickle to give the child plenty of time to cool his hot head and rethink whatever it was he intended to say.
But when she finally took a sip and looked up, Warrick stared back at her with a gleam of humor in his eyes.
“Lady Alice, are you quite hydrated?”
“Yes, but—”
“Excellent. Do you perhaps need a biscuit, as well?”
Oh dear. What did one do with a man who was on to all of one’s tricks?
Marry him off to one’s granddaughter, if possible.
Lady Alice gestured for him to proceed.
Warrick drew his chair even closer. “Lady Alice, it won’t do. I’ve just returned from a ride, where I found your granddaughter and the prince—” The muscles of his jaw worked, and he ground to a halt, grimmer than ever.
The dowager took another slow sip from her glass. Interesting, indeed!
Lady Alice, like all of the Avetons, was never short of opinions or one to doubt her own mind.
She found the duke quite splendid, if a little shaggy for her liking, but when Charlotte looked at him—well, the dowager hadn’t known that a laughing face could hold so much feeling.
There’d been that business of the letters a few years back, and the dowager would have boxed Warrick about his ears if she could reach them, until she saw that he was also suffering.
She’d always thought Charlotte and her duke would find their way back to each other, but instead they kept stumbling.
On the one hand, it wouldn’t do to meddle too much. It was best for a grandmother to be the port in the storm and not the ocean. On the other hand, what was the harm in making a few waves?
“My granddaughter and the prince?” the dowager prodded, just to see how dark his face could get. “You were saying?”
Warrick pushed back his chair and stood, raking a hand through his hair and leaving it more disheveled than ever. He paced, muttering something about “Julian” and “damnable position.”
Good. At least he knew how ridiculous he was acting.
“Your Grace, you seem quite agitated. Instead of a pot of tea, should I send for something stronger?”
Warrick stopped pacing and turned to her. “My lady, I came here to tell you that your granddaughter must be properly chaperoned.”
“I see.” The dowager put her lemonade down. “Is it your opinion that I’m not chaperoning her properly?”
Warrick’s face darkened further. Soon he’d be as red as a bruise, poor boy. “She was up at all hours with Darlington, and now she goes wherever she wishes with Belozersky. It’s not my position to tell you—”
“And yet here you are, telling me anyway. Your Grace, perhaps instead you should listen?” She fixed her eyes on him.
“My granddaughter may well be married by the end of the summer, so I will give her latitude to get to know her suitors in the way she feels is best. They have each made their intentions entirely clear. You, on the other hand, present more of a conundrum. Your Grace, why did I see Charlotte sneaking out of your bedchamber so late last night?”
Warrick stared, and the dowager wondered if it would have been kinder to ask a gardener to pick up a shovel and whack the poor man over the head.
“What?”
“Oh dear! Were you so vodka-addled that you don’t recall? In that case, perhaps you’d prefer to tell me why my granddaughter looked so rumpled after your sojourn in the woods with her on the trip down from London?”
As she suspected, he had no answer.
“Nothing to say, Your Grace?” Lady Alice smiled up at him. “In that case I must ask—what exactly are your intentions toward my granddaughter?”
The dowager often wondered what was more effective in conversation, a killing retort or the silence after.
Certainly as the seconds stretched, the cool hush of the orangerie seemed to be torturing Warrick, as if the ferns and orchids had climbed out of their neat beds and begun to shriek.
It was rare for a man like him—a war hero and a duke—to find himself so firmly in the wrong.
Did it feel like an earthquake inside, when that much self-righteousness toppled down at once?
“Lady Alice, I…”
He ground to a halt again, which struck the dowager as promising.
“Yes, Your Grace?”
Warrick clenched his fists and unclenched them again, but there was no punching his way out of this one.
And you don’t want to escape, dear boy, thought the dowager as she waited patiently for the obvious to dawn. Can’t you see that if you’d both unbend a little, you’d be perfect for each other?
Warrick squared his shoulders and straightened his spine, looking like a man staring down the hangman’s noose. “Lady Alice, my apologies. My intentions are… entirely honorable, as they must be.”
The dowager beamed at him. “Wonderful, Your Grace. Then I assume you’ll start courting her?”
And if you do so with that face, I suspect it won’t go well for you.
“Yes, of course, your ladyship.” Warrick bowed stiffly.
“One last thing. I’ve never watched Charlotte too closely, and that’s because I trust her. Perhaps you should try it?”
Warrick nodded once and wheeled away, striding off through the dangling vines.
“That,” she whispered to herself, full of satisfaction as she watched him go, “is how one chaperones.”